Cassie Shouger
Cassie Shouger
VP, Talent - Roblox
For Cassie Shouger, a career in talent acquisition didn't begin with recruiting—it began with executive compensation.
Early in her career, Cassie worked in executive compensation consulting, designing compensation programs for executive teams and boards of directors. Much of her work revolved around benchmarking roles, analyzing market data, and running regression analyses to compare organizations across industries and company sizes.
While she enjoyed the analytical side of the work, something was missing.
“I wasn't getting a lot of interaction with people,” Cassie recalls.
Everything changed after meeting the head of talent acquisition at another company.
After hearing about her work, he suggested she consider recruiting instead.
“He said, ‘I think you would like recruiting. Why don't you come join me and try it out?’”
Initially uncertain, Cassie accepted a recruiting operations role, where she implemented an applicant tracking system and built executive dashboards to measure hiring velocity and recruiting performance.
A few years later, she transitioned into full-cycle recruiting.
“Once I did that,” she says, “I kind of never looked back.”
The Leaders Who Took a Chance
Throughout her career, Cassie credits several leaders whose trust and confidence helped shape the trajectory of her career.
The first was the talent acquisition leader who introduced her to recruiting in the first place. His encouragement not only inspired her career change but also led her to follow him across multiple organizations, where he continued serving as a mentor.
Later, while at Zynga, she worked under Chief People Officer Colleen McCreary, whose leadership left a lasting impression.
After Zynga, Cassie joined EA, where she worked alongside Chief People Officer Mala Singh and Vice President of Talent Acquisition Jesse Connell, who now leads talent acquisition at MongoDB.
At the time, Cassie was recruited to build and lead EA's executive recruiting team—even though she had never come from a traditional executive search background.
“When they approached me, I said, ‘I don't know if I can do this.’”
Instead of focusing on what she hadn't done before, her leaders focused on what they believed she could accomplish.
“They put a ton of confidence and trust in my ability to learn and build something.”
That experience fundamentally changed how Cassie viewed her own potential.
Years later, she joined Roblox to build the company's executive recruiting function. Today, she leads the entire talent acquisition organization.
“It really goes to show what a little bit of trust and confidence from leaders can do for your career.”
Finding the Right Balance Between AI and Humanity
As AI rapidly transforms recruiting, Cassie believes talent leaders should first answer an important philosophical question before adopting any new technology:
What parts of recruiting should be powered by AI, and what parts should always remain human?
For Cassie, changing jobs is one of the most personal decisions someone can make.
A new opportunity can fundamentally change the direction of a person's career, making recruiting far more than a transactional process.
Because of that, she believes AI should be used to accelerate repetitive work—not replace meaningful human interaction.
She sees tremendous value in using AI for sourcing, recruiter screens, job description creation, and other administrative or transactional tasks that consume recruiters' time.
By automating those activities, recruiters can spend more time partnering with hiring managers, advising the business, and helping leaders think strategically about the talent they truly need.
At the same time, Cassie believes certain moments should always remain human.
The decision to hire someone, extending an offer, and building relationships with candidates are experiences that deserve a personal touch.
“That is a very personal thing,” she says.
For Cassie, AI should enhance recruiting—not remove the humanity from it.
Experimenting Without Fear
Rather than searching for a single AI solution to transform recruiting overnight, Cassie approaches innovation as a series of thoughtful experiments.
She believes there is no silver bullet.
Instead, there are numerous opportunities throughout the hiring process where automation, machine learning, or AI can improve speed and efficiency.
From sourcing through hiring, she continually evaluates where technology can create incremental improvements while preserving the overall candidate experience.
“I’m experimenting with a ton of different things,” she says.
If a new approach works, her team scales it.
If it doesn't, they simply move on.
“I’m not afraid to try different things. And if they don't work, we won't do it—or we'll revert back.”
That willingness to test, learn, and adapt has become increasingly important as AI continues evolving at an unprecedented pace.
Cassie also emphasizes the importance of staying connected with peers and technology providers to understand how the market continues to change.
“I think we have to continue to talk to our peer groups, learn more about what companies are doing, and stay in touch with what's going on,” she explains.
“Otherwise, we'll be stale and we'll be left in the dust.”
Advice for Talent Leaders Heading into 2026
As recruiting enters a new era of AI-powered transformation, Cassie believes the most successful talent leaders won't be the ones searching for one perfect solution.
Instead, they'll remain curious.
They'll experiment responsibly, embrace continuous learning, and thoughtfully evaluate where technology creates meaningful value.
Most importantly, they'll preserve the human experiences that make recruiting so impactful.
AI can dramatically improve hiring velocity and recruiter efficiency, but trust, relationships, career conversations, and life-changing hiring decisions will always require people.
For Cassie Shouger, the future of recruiting isn't about replacing recruiters.
It's about giving them the tools to spend more time doing what matters most: helping people make some of the biggest decisions of their careers.
